20 Questionz

I’ve been tagged by Leah.  For lack of anything better to do, here goes. 

Here’re the rules: Remove 1 question from the list below, and add your own personal question to make it a total of 20 questions. Tag 8 people, list them out at the end of this post. Notify them in their chat box that he/she has been tagged. Whoever does the tag will have blessings from all.

1. At what age do/did you wish to marry? 26. Hehe

2. What color do you like most? Black, it just suits my personality.
 

3. If you can have a superpower, what would it be? Immortality. Or to be specific, eternal youth.  I would also like to haven super intelligence ala Dr Doom or Mr Fantastic as well as the ability to teleport anywhere in the universe.  Actually, maybe I would like to have reality-warping abilities just like Franklin Richards, who with a single thought was able to create a second Earth (Marvel Comics).
 

4. If you can travel anywhere in the world, where would you want to go? Somewhere most people have never been like Antartica or the Gobi Desert.

5. Which part of you do you hate the most? My tummy.

6. When you get sad, what do you do? I don’t. Ok, fine. I write.

7. If you win $1 million, what would you do with the money? Buy a house, some stocks, an SUV (a Range Rover) and put the rest in other investments.  I’m very materialistic and I don’t think charities are trustworthy enough to handle donations.

8. What do you think you’ll love about this year (2008)? Since I’m moving closer to Europe and have 30 days of leave, I think I’ll be able to afford to make a few trips here and there.  I want to see Paris, Rome, the Vatican, Naples, Berlin, Venice and perhaps London again.

9. What is your New Year’s resolution?  Exercise more.  I’ve been committed thus far.

10. What is the moment you regret most?  Being nice to people who don’t deserve it, and it takes a lot for me to be nice.

11. What type of person do you hate the most?  Pretenders who aren’t good at pretending.

12. What is your greatest asset? My brain.  It’s useful.

13. What do people normally notice about you? That I have a strong personality (or an annoying one??).

14. How did you celebrate the New Year?  Dinner with family.  Watched neighborhood fireworks like most Pinoys.

15. Which movie did you wish you were in? Schindler’s List or Saving Private Ryan - but wait, there aren’t any Filipinos in that movie.  The Departed maybe.

16. It’s 2008. What are you looking forward to this year? Moving to a new place and working on new things.

17. Anything in your life that you wish weren’t so awful? Social life.  I guess I need to be more friendly and approachable.  But I digress.  It’s worked so far and I have friends who you can actually call friends. Having a bad temper is a better answer.

18. What’s the shallowest thing you intend to do this year? Buy either a new XBOX 360 or a PS3 and a 32" LCD TV as soon as I find a place to stay in Dubai. Also a couch.

19. And the most noble thing you plan to do?
Didn’t I just say that I was very materialistic? I think the most noble thing one can do is be responsible and take care of one’s family. 

20. Name three people you not only want to MEET, but would love to be FRIENDS/BFFs with. (As in first-name basis, email/text you when they’re in town.)
Anne Curtis and Amber Davis simply because they’re so hot. Steven Spielberg because, since he controls all his films, I can get the first dibs on all his new masterpieces.

TAGGING: No one.  I was just a little less than too lazy to do this thing now I really am too lazy to even bother to disturb anyone else to do it.

Corporate Tax Reduction

I understand that the Bureau of Internal Revenue is being asked to come up with ways to increase its collections this year to make up for the effect of the impending decrease in Corporate Income Tax from 35% to 30%, which is expected to bring down revenues by as much as PHP 15 billion.  I believe that, regardless of whether there is an increase or a decrease in the tax rates, the BIR should always be seeking to improve its collection methods through stricter implementation, changes in policy and lobbying for or recommeding legislation, if necessary.  There is consensus that the Philippines’ current taxation program is very complicated and offers many loopholes for manipulation and abuse while its incentive programs are overlapping and can cause "double" exemptions.  Overall, there is much improvement to be expected in both regulation and implementation.

Corporate Income Tax accounts for as much as 30% of the Bureau’s collections, the remainder being composed of Individual Income Taxes and others.  It should be noted that the tax rate for the top bracket for individual income taxes currently stands at 32%.  At these tax levels and with our population, I should already expect to receive welfare or, at the very least, free primary and secondary education at par with most private schools as well as universal healthcare.  And yet, we are far from these.  Yes, you can send your child to public school but at the cost of quality.  Most public schools can hardly afford a decent library let alone maintain a high quality of education.  You can also send yourself to one of many public hospitals but don’t expect to receive the same level of care and have access to the modernized facilities and equipment that you would at a private hospital.  In fact, many public hospitals have separate paying and non-paying wards where the difference is obvious.

At these tax levels, I should at expect to drive on smooth, well-paved avenues that are maintained regularly to ensure the safety of the people using it.  At the very least, the street in front of my house to be maintained at a reasonable level.  This isn’t the case, however.  Our beloved EDSA undulates because of the many inconsistent repairs that it has seen over the years.  It’s much better now but it can’t compare to the level of maintenance received by the South and North Luzon Expressways.  I drive to and from Makati everyday, there’s practically a new pothole or an obstruction somewhere along the road each day.  There’s literally a large crater at the corner near our house, it’s a good thing I’m driving a pick-up.  Just a few streets away, another Maynilad/Manila Water construction has pretty much obliterated one of the few decent streets in the neighborhood.  We all know what happens when these guys pass through town.

I haven’t even started talking about traffic.  While it’s commendable that at least they’re trying new ways to improve it trraffic, most of the time I feel like they’re just randomly and arbitrarily spending tax money on some band-aid fixes that sometimes causes more traffic (and injury).  The Unified Vehicle Volume Reduction Program, more popularly known as the Color Coding Scheme, is pretty much a limitation of our liberty to travel using our hard-earned vehicles.  It doesn’t even apply to all the cities.  

I could go on and on but I think we all know what a complicated, inexplicable, tangled web we’ve created for ourselves, and it’s going to take a very long time to unravel it.  In the meantime, many Filipinos are just escaping it.  Some without the intention of looking back or returning, others with the hope that when they return, everything has been fixed.

The Wheels Are Turning

I guess this is it.  The wheels are turning inexorably and it’s only a matter of time, maybe one or two months, before I finally leave this country for greener pastures and officially become an OFW.  I declined an offer to work in Hong Kong but accepted a posting in Dubai.  I’m now being rushed to get my affairs in order so I can fly there and start as soon as possible.  It’s a little surreal and daunting but also quite exciting, not so much for the travel but the opportunity for a fresh start and an international carreer. I’m about to take a job very similar to what I’m currently doing but the way things are done could be very different.  For example, the normal working days in Dubai are Sunday to Thursday. 

It’s also a little scary, I’ve heard some good things about Dubai and also some pretty bad things.  I recently read an article about a British national who, on his way back to his country had to pass through the Dubai airport, is being jailed for 4 years, a mandatory term, for having literally a speck of cannabis under his shoe.  The speck is purportedly only 0.001 grams, smaller than the human eye can see but big enough to be detected by the country’s high-tech equipment.  Another man was also jailed for having been found with three poppy seeds which apparently had been left over after eating a bagel.  These are literally insignificant amounts and would very quickly be dismissed in another country but Dubai has a strict zero-tolerance policy on illegal substances as well as pirated articles.  I guess, it’s just better to be safe than sorry.  So, before my flight, I’m going to make sure to stay away from any plants, vegetables, medicines and make sure that my belongings are devoid of any pirated materials.

On a positive note, my sister has been living in Dubai for a little over a year.  It’s good to have some family around.  There’re also a lot of Filipinos so it should be easy to find some sort of small community that will help acclimatize myself to the new environment.  I will also need them for all the athletic activities that I will surely miss.  Shopping certainly will not compensate for that. 

I never thought I would go this early or this fast but I guess at 26, this is a great opportunity.  I always imagined myself working abroad for five years or so to make just enough money and then come back to the Philippines to settle down.  However, it seems like I’m going to be permanently out of the country, at least for the near future.  I’m not saying that I will stay in Dubai forever because there will be many other oppotunities in the future for me to work in other places.  London, New York or even Tokyo come to mind.  When I start working in Dubai, these places will not seem as far or as hard to reach as they used to.  Hopefully, wherever my travels take me, I should be able to save enough to start some sort of business in the Philippines and live how everyone should live - which is to be one’s own boss and to work on something that doesn’t feel like work. 

I guess it’s a fact of life for Filipinos.  It has often been called a modern day diaspora but until our country is able to adequately provide for each Filipino’s needs, then the exodus will continue.  If the opportunity for a better life presents itself, then obviously one has to take it.  As of today, I probably have more than three dozen friends and relatives, born and bred in the Philippines, who have uprooted themselves to settle in another country and many more are planning to.  Nevertheless, I will look back to the Philippines and long for the place where I grew, to be with the friends and family that I know.

Traffic Enforcers Cause Traffic

Couldn’t think of a wittier title but that pretty much sums it up.

I was taking JP Rizal on the way to work this morning.  Traffic was moderately slow, as it usually is, owing to the large number of jeepneys who don’t really care where they park their old rustbuckets. They must all be blind on the right eye because they can’t stick to one lane and don’t seem to be able to stop their jeeps near the curb without blocking at least two lanes, yet they are able to forcefully swerve and cut onto the left, even against oncoming traffic, with relative ease.  I don’t know what it is with that road but taxis and private cars also seem to like taking their sweet time driving along it.  Anyway, there was no police officer or traffic enforcer in sight which is not surprising given that they have a habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time and never being where you need them to be.  I guess they realised that JP Rizal was a lost cause.

After significant frustration and horn-honking, I was able to make my way to South Avenue which, unfortunately, wasn’t any better.  Traffic was backed-up almost all the way to JP Rizal, and the only reason was that the cars on South Avenue couldn’t cross Kalayaan Avenue because the jeepneys, this time traversing Kalayaan, would not give way.  It would have been good to have some sort of law enforcement in that area but, like I said, it seems like they are repelled by the distinct possibility of contributing to society.

Obviously, I was able to make my way across Kalayaan through to the end of South Avenue where it meets with the inexplicable intersection of Ayala, Kamagong, Jupiter and Zobel Roxas.  It’s that intersection where they were supposed to put up some ambulatory care center but a BPI sprung up instead.  How dubious is that?  It’s that intersection where Kamagong becomes Ayala, Jupiter becomes Zobel Roxas, Ayala becomes South Avenue. Anyway, at that intersection, I had to turn right into Zobel Roxas, drive straight past the Total station and make a left on Sacred Heart and make another immediate left on Kamagong to get to Ayala Avenue.  This pretty much where all hell broke lose and, guess what, there were no less than six Mapsa officers in the area with four of them just bumbling around, not to mention that the Makati police station is just around the corner.

Anyway, the intersection of doom was in a virtual grid-lock and the boys in yellow pretty much couldn’t figure it out.  I mean, it’s tough enough for them to manage your standard two-street intersection, but it must’ve been such a stretch for them to handle that situation that not even six heads could comprehend it.  There was this officer on the Kamagong-Bagtikan intersection who was waving cars on both streets to go.  The four bumbling idiots I previously mentioned were just on the other side of the street, with one of them making the "hurry up" sign - a lot of help in that situation.  To complicate things even further, there was a police car trying to cross from Ayala to South Avenue, even when a car was halfway to making a left from South Avenue to Jupiter, had to force his way through thus causing that particular intersection to jam and hence more traffic ensued.

I happened to live near that area not too long ago and I distinctly remember that intersection was fairly manageable without them.  Despite the undisciplined driving habits of Filipino drivers, they seem to be able to sort things out naturally in traffic.  Only when traffic authorities decide that there’s a traffic problem does a traffic problem actually start to occur.  Only in very specific circumstances is the presence of a traffic officer actually really required.

Philippines to Phase Out Incandescent Bulbs

I can’t believe I’m saying it but kudos to the government for being one of the first countries in the world, and the first in Asia, to take this seemingly big step towards a more environmentally-friendly society.  The incandescent bulb, while having literally changed the world, could arguably be one of the household’s most inefficient appliances (?).  Much like the internal combustion engine, it loses much of the energy it consumes through heat which literally just dissipates into nothingness.

The incandescent bulb is being replaced by the compact fluorescent lamp, a variation of those long glass fluorescent lamp.  They are know to consume less energy for the same amount of light produced as well as last longer than the ordinary incandescent bulb.  Although they are more expensive, it could be argued that the savings from the decrease in energy consumption as well as the longer usable life of the lamps can more than compensate for the cost.  As a side not, many Filipinos believe that Agapito Flores is the true inventor of the fluorescnet lamp, however, there is still a bit of a controversy because several scientists before him had either published or patented the same or similar technology.  It seems to be true however that he received a French patent for the fluorescent lamp which he later on sold to General Electric, which earned millions from the resulting product.  Regardless of who the real or first inventor was, what is important is that we have a more efficient way of generating light.

The government’s move has several advantages on both the short and long term.  In the short term, househoulds will benefit from a general reduction in electricity costs and the strain caused by energy demand will also be impacted positively.  On the long term, the government will be able to reduce the countries greenhouse gas emissions significantly as a result of the lower energy usage.

So, is this goodbye to the light bulb which has changed little since the time of Thomas Edison?  Yes, but not yet.  The phase out is scheduled to be completed in 2010, but until then you can bet that the ordinary light bulb will remain to be one of the most ubiquitous household items.

Read more about it at Big News Network.

System Solutions will not Address Personnel Problems

unless, of course, if it totally replaces the people

amen